Effects of diet and progesterone on the cellularity of parametrial adipose tissue in mice

4-week old female mice received for 28 weeks a control or a high-fat diet, or one of these diets enriched with progesterone. The progesterone diets did not change food intake but reduced exploratory activity. Further, they increased the weight of two body fat depots ; in the parametrial fat pad, this augmentation was due to an increase in fat cell number. The effects of progesterone were the same in both the mice fed the control diet and in those rendered obese by the high-fat diet ; the fat cells of the latter already showed hypertrophy and hyperplasia.